Redacted Affidavits and Rorschach Tests - 8/27/2022

What do you see? I see a Grateful Dead skull and crossbones album cover.

From the beginning everything to do with candidate Donald Trump as he came down the escalator, up until the present, Former President Donald J Trump's home raided to collect classified documents, if nothing else, he has been a human Rorschach Test. It's pretty amazing, actually. Most of you, Trump supporters over there, and Trump haters over there, are probably going to disagree with some or much if what I have to say, but I have to say it.

First off, I have read a number of editorials regarding the raid on Mar A Lago, and something I have seen stated time and again is that Trump brings much of this upon himself. I'd like to say "No way!" or to make a cogent argument against such statements, but I can't. Time and again he's said stuff that makes even me, a supporter ask, "What the hell did he have to say that for?" He is a true bull in a china shop and often says what everyone is thinking in a way that is sure to offend some, make others uncomfortable, and still others stand up and cheer, "Finally! Someone is saying what needed to be said!"

Another thing Trump has done and continues to do, is to challenge and defy the DC establishment and bureaucracy, aka "The Swamp". The Swamp includes establishment politicians from both parties who are getting rich, rich, rich while performing "public service". It also includes all the career agency employees. Theses are the ones who, unelected, wield power like an untouchable, independent, fourth branch of the government. This includes the IRS, the FDA, the DOT, and of course the CIA, DIA, FBI, and NSA. Trump has taken the opportunity to kick these swampers in the nuts every chance he's gotten. The swamp nowadays also includes a majority portion of the press and media, including big social media. And finally, last but far from least, the swamp includes the big money, the influencers who own the politicians and who call many, many of the shots in our government in D.C. None of them like Trump very much. The feeling is quite mutual. They collectively wield way more power than an ex-President. They're also unscrupulous and vengeful.

So, lemme get to the point. We don't know the facts. You don't. I don't. We often see what we presume to see. Everyone in the aforementioned swamp is working to undermine and damage Trump. Every single bit of it is. Some of you have great faith and trust in these institutions. I don't, but I concede that many of you do. And I have to concede, also, that Trump causes his own problems, which is where I started this piece this morning.

Trump was the President. As President he not only had access to classified documents, he had full authority to declassify them. I know some of you you don't think he was ever fit for the job, but that's neither here nor there. He had the job and with it he had declassification authority. He's probably going to say he declassified these docs. How in the hell are they going to argue that he didn't or couldn't or whatever? I don't know.

Trump believes he was unfairly targeted by Comey, McCabe, and the rest of them with the Hillary Clinton funded Russian Collusion hoax, which spawned the Mueller investigation. The entire swamp rallied behind this conspiracy, and many of you who are breathless at these new classified document revelations (revelations? really? what has been revealed? redacted revelations?) were equally so at the Russia hoax. You bought Hillary's lies hook, line, and sinker. Yeah, you did. Many STILL believe it. Well, this stuff coming out now is coming from the same people and with the same kinds of leaks and media flame fanning that characterized 2016-2019. It was a setup from the get go. This looks remarkably similar to many of us.

Did Trump have stuff at Mar A Lago that is still classified and that he shouldn't have had there? Very possibly. Was there wrangling and sparring, aka negotiations, going on about these prior to the raid that they don't want us to call a raid? Yeah, there was. Trump didn't give in to them. But why? I don't know for sure. You don't either.

Did Trump have some of the formerly classified documents that he ordered declassified in the fall (or was it winter) of 2020? I'm referring to Russiagate docs that show the swamp's setup of the whole scam. If you don't recall, I do. Trump ordered those docs declassified. He had full authority to do so from the get go. The problem is that some of you, like the swamp, never accepted someone like Trump as your President from the get go. You felt "resist" was a totally acceptable and necessary thing because you never saw any legitimacy in the Trump presidency. How much of that was because you believed the Russiagate stuff, and how much was just the shit Trump said over and over in ways that rankled you to your core? I contend you can't separate the two, but that the two combined to shade your perception of every single thing Trump said and did, and what he says and does right up to today.

The sense of Trump's illegitimacy from day one permeates the swamp totally and fully. Some of you, too, if you're honest. I am convinced that the folks over at the National Archives, the archivists who manage presidential documents and have for decades, have felt a compulsion to address the grave concern that this illegitimate and inappropriate, uncouth, anti-swamp warrior has presidential documents of which he is not and was never worthy of and now that he's gone they are taking no chances that he continue to possess that which he ought not to have had in the first place.

Trump is a political Rorschach Test. Some of you see nothing but evil and wrongdoing in every single thing he says and does. Some of us say, "Finally, someone who represents us!" There are very few people in the small area in between.

To some, what a redacted document says proves Trump guilty, to others, what is blacked out it proves a corrupt swamp is working overtime to frame him. There's not much there, but everyone is seeing what they want to see anyway.

I've got to ask. Why now? I can tell you there is a great deal of political opportunism going on here. This raid, the fight over these documents comes at an extremely opportune time. It's one thing, not the only thing, that has taken some of the critical focus off a Joe Biden presidency that had been flailing and wallowing. The Supreme Court's overturn of Roe V Wade helped Democrats some. The Student Debt forgiveness will sway some and help his favorability, too. But let there be no doubt, there is nothing better to energize the base for Joe Biden right now, and for Democrats headed into what was looking like a mid-term drubbing, than "Orange Man Bad". It works. They know it works. They are playing it to the fullest. The fact that President Biden and his spokesperson Jean-Pierre are calling Trump's MAGA movement fascist this week is no coincidence. I'm sure many on the left were delighted to hear them say it. You don't have the fucking balls to call me a fascist, because you know it's a goddamned lie, but you love love love hearing Biden and Jean-Pierre say it.

This is NOT just a political play for 2022 and 2024, though. I'm not that naive. Trump is the enemy of the left, and the enemy of the swamp. He is being attacked with the intent of destroying him and also his movement.